Mehsud tribesmen say that they are being persecuted on the basis of their tribal background as key TTP leaders — Baitullah, Hakimullah, Waliur Rehman and now Khan Said alias Sajna — belonged to the Mehsud clan. “Police now treat every Mehsud as a TTP militant and have adopted ‘arrest and kill’ policy for us if we fail to pay them bribes,” says Muhammad Din, a tribal elder.

Law enforcement agencies in Karachi have stepped up counterterrorism operations against Taliban groups in the Pakhtun neighbourhoods of the city in response to the Dec 16 attack on Army Public School in Peshawar; alongside, accusations of extrajudicial killings have also increased.

Since Dec 16, police and Rangers in Karachi have claimed killing a number of suspected militants allegedly belonging to the TTP. Among them was Abid Mehsud, alias Mucharh, the operational commander of the TTP Mehsud faction in the city. He was killed on Dec 18 along with three deputies in an ‘encounter’ with Rangers in Musharraf Colony. The operation was considered an achievement by the law enforcement agencies and a blow to the TTP in the city, say police officials as well as Pakhtun political activists.

However, a number of recent operations have been controversial. For instance, residents of Deluxe Town, where Abdullah was killed along with 12 other suspects, say that the “encounter was fake”. “We have seen a number of such fake encounters in the last few months in our locality,” says the owner of a house in the neighbourhood, requesting anonymity. “Police bring suspects arrested from other areas and kill them here.”

Interviews with Pakhtun tribal elders, political activists and families of those killed suggest that police regularly harass people from tribal areas, especially those belonging to the Mehsud clan. They agree that the TTP has a strong presence in Pakhtun neighbourhoods and that law enforcement agencies have killed a number of TTP militants in recent months.
However, they also say that the police have started “picking up” Mehsud tribesmen and releasing them after payment of money. This criticism is so rampant, they say, that Rangers, who used to hand over suspects cleared of suspicion to the police, have started releasing them directly because of complaints of police bribery.

“Sachal, Sohrab Goth and Gulshan-i-Maymar police picked up more than 30 Mehsud tribesmen recently and their whereabouts are still unknown,” says a local Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader.

The alleged “custodial killing” of Nazeerullah Mehsud, a PTI member from Kunwari Colony, and his friend, on Dec 28, and the killing of Mufti Shah Faisal Mehsud, a leader of Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) on Nov 17, in what is being claimed was a fake encounter, triggered big protests in the city. In both cases the police claimed that the killed were Taliban
militants, while leaders of the two political parties insist that they were innocent. “The police took away Mufti Faisal and his brother Noor Wali from their house in Surjani town in August. Wali was released by the Sachal police after a payment of Rs25,000 but Faisal was killed in a fake encounter, ” says JUI-F’s Karachi chief, Qari Usman.

Mehsud transporters and elders say that they have been forced to pay millions of rupees as “protection money” to avoid being targeted by the TTP, mainly because of the failure of the government to provide them security. “Now police harass the community, saying that they have been involved in providing financial support to the TTP,” says a Mehsud trader, adding that a number of police officers in Taliban strongholds have also paid “protection money” to local TTP leaders.

Maulana Jamaluddin, MNA from the Mehsud area of South Waziristan, says that he not only raised the issue of the targeting of Mehsud tribesmen in Karachi in parliament but along with Saleh Shah, a senator from the same area, also discussed the matter with Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah. Reiterating the complaints of Mehsud tribesmen in the city, Jamaluddin said that “Police pick them up during raids. If they pay, they can return, otherwise they are killed in fake encounters.” He also asked authorities in Sindh to “direct law enforcement agencies to present suspects in court instead of killing them in fake encounters” and to make better use of intelligence sources.

Spokesperson for the Karachi police, however, rejects claims of extrajudicial killings. Atiq Shaikh says that police “face reprisal” when they “raid terrorists’ hideouts,” adding that 143 police personnel were killed in Karachi in 2014, mainly by the TTP.

Meanwhile, human rights activists say that extrajudicial killings are not a new phenomenon in Karachi. “If someone is involved in a crime, courts should decide his case,” says Asad Iqbal Butt, an official of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). Fake encounters are giving rise to a sense of insecurity among people, he says, adding that according to HRCP statistics, around 450 people were killed in police encounters in Karachi in 2014.

On DawnNews

Comments (19) Closed

Umair

Jan 04, 2015 09:03am

The Onus of proving the guilt or crime lies with the law enforcement personnel. With the shadowy history of encounters, these agencies must be reined in by their respective officer and politicians. Although the consensus has been achieved to root out terrorism by the politician . The Law Enforcement agencies must use the free hand given to them for targeting individuals on ethnic, religious or suspicion basis, for such targeting will only generate hate against the state and the actual cause will be ignored.

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Yawar

Jan 04, 2015 10:08am

The military courts should also take on extrajudicial killing cases by the police. Anyone found guilty should be hanged.

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concerned_Cit

Jan 04, 2015 11:33am

Fake encounters should NOT be encouraged at any cost. If a Mehsud can e targeted in fake encounters, so can I and my family.
This MUST stop.

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Reader

Jan 04, 2015 11:54am

Well if constitution doesn't allow capital punishment for Hardcore terrorists then what LEAs can do except extra-judicial killings. It is a lot better to have capital punishment then encounters, drone attacks & aerial bombings.

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Safar Shah

Jan 04, 2015 12:25pm

Most of the Mehsud I have met, hate Pakistan and Pakistan Army. They are part of TTP.

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Karachi Qabail

Jan 04, 2015 12:42pm

The extra-judicial killing of Mehsud and other Pashtun tribes in Karachi is going on for last three years. MQM, Baloch and Sindhi nationalist parries have access to mainstream media and rights groups but poor Pashtuns do not know how to use such channels to raise the voice against ‘extra-judicai killing’ of their community members. Thanks Dawn newspaper for raising voice for us.

People of tribal areas living in Karachi for last three to four decades

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Kamal Pasha

Jan 04, 2015 02:09pm

This has become practice. Everybody is saying they are innocents. MQM, ANP, PPP, are all saying they are innocents. Who are doing all these crimes?

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Muhammad

Jan 04, 2015 04:27pm

That's is so sad. The way they treated those people , eventually they will become taliban. This need to be stopped.

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Riaz

Jan 04, 2015 04:30pm

Government must provide justice to all; no innocent must be punished irrespective of caste, tribe, sect, or religion etc etc.

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Riaz

Jan 04, 2015 04:34pm

@Safar Shah ; You are not authorized to kill a person just because he hates you. You should learn and redress their grievances. Only terrorists must be punished.

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BRIJ

Jan 04, 2015 04:55pm

New groups of terrorists are being created in the name of controlling terrorism.

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law

Jan 04, 2015 04:59pm

huuff lol every thing is fake now these encounters too

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waleedfakhar

Jan 04, 2015 05:39pm

there is no smoke without fire.

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Mohammed Khanzada

Jan 04, 2015 07:00pm

@Riaz , can you kill someone, who is trying to kill you?

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Rahul

Jan 04, 2015 08:08pm

Military will not need to do fake encounters before long. They can just get their courts to hang unwanted people legally!

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iftikhar

Jan 04, 2015 08:33pm

@Safar Shah but why?

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Raja Farhat Abbas

Jan 04, 2015 10:49pm

@Safar Shah You are wrong mate, most Mehsud are Patriotic and love Pakistan.!

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Mia

Jan 05, 2015 02:37am

@Safar Shah Do you expect them to love Pakistan when they are racially profiled?

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anees zaidvi

Jan 05, 2015 08:59am

@Safar Shah - How many have you met? If you met 5 and 3 hated Pakistan, that will be considered as most. But is 5 a number enough to represent the whole tribe?